Still socialist after all these years

By
October 9, 2007

With her intimidating lead in the polls, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential juggernaut looks increasingly unstoppable. This may have emboldened the New York Democrat to stop masquerading as a moderate and instead flaunt her full-throated, left-wing radicalism.

“I like the idea of giving every baby born in America a $5,000 account that will grow over time, so that when that young person turns 18, if they (sic) have finished high school, they will be able to access it to go to college or maybe they will be able to make that down payment on their first home.”

Given roughly 4 million annual births, Clinton’s proposal would cost taxpayers some $20 billion each year.

In 1972, then-Sen. George McGovern similarly offered every American a $1,000 “Demogrant.” Rather than be bribed with their own money, voters overwhelmingly re-elected the South Dakota Democrat’s opponent, Richard Nixon.

Now, Clinton has resurrected McGovern’s Vietnam-era brainstorm and retooled it for the ’00s. Today, it’s for — all together now — “the children.” She also inflated McGovern’s concept, almost perfectly. The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ online inflation calculator indicates that $1,000 in 1972 now equals $4,974.09. At least concerning “the children,” Clinton is 100.52 percent for McGovern’s promise.

Clinton’s Swedish-style idea lacks affluence testing. Every infant would score a $5,000 baby bond — from East L.A. to East Hampton. Fittingly, Clinton has said: “I am a fan of a lot of the social policies that you find in Europe.”

Clinton’s SCHIP reform also would air-raid cash on Americans as if from B-52s. While senators extended the State Children’s Health Insurance Program to families of four earning thrice the poverty line ($61,950), she advocated eligibility at quadruple that threshold — a scandalous $82,600.

It now transpires that an SCHIP concept was among Clinton’s fallbacks if “HillaryCare” crashed, which it stunningly did. Tuesday’s Politico.com revealed a 1993 memo in which White House staffers outlined “Kids First.”

“This proposal phases in universal coverage,” the draft states. “Under this approach, health-care reform is phased in by population, beginning with children.”

Clinton spurned Sen. John Cornyn’s affirmation that America’s Iraq commander, Army Gen. David Petraeus, “deserves the full support of the Senate” and that senators “strongly condemn personal attacks on the honor and integrity of General Petraeus and all members of the United States Armed Forces.” The Texas Republican’s amendment rebuffed the notorious “General Petraeus or General Betray Us” ad that MoveOn.org purchased at the New York Times’ apparently illegal discount price.

Cornyn’s measure passed on Sept. 20, 72-25, with ample Democratic support. However, Clinton broke left of such liberal stalwarts as California’s Dianne Feinstein, Vermont’s Patrick Leahy and Maryland’s Barbara Mikulski, all of whom backed Petraeus and America’s troops. Clinton showed them the back of her hand.

The ever-cautious Clinton occasionally exposes her true ideological core. “We’re going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good,” she told San Franciscans in June 2004. As first lady, she said: “We must stop thinking of the individual and start thinking about what is best for society.”

Clinton is a hardened socialist, despite the mainstream media’s efforts to portray her as a “centrist” merely because she is not as over-a-cliff-left as Michael Moore or MoveOn.org’s patron, George Soros. Worse, her ethical corner-cutting routinely attracts dodgy, cash-rich rogues like recently captured fugitive fund-raiser Norman Hsu.

With their worst possible nightmare lurking around the corner, Republicans urgently must coalesce around the GOP contender best prepared to shear Hillary Clinton’s blond ambition.

(New York commentator Deroy Murdock is a columnist and a media fellow with the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace at Stanford University. E-mail him at deroy.murdock(at)gmail.com.)

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7 Responses to Still socialist after all these years

Steve Horn

October 9, 2007 at 9:29 am

Please don’t call Clinton a socialist – she’s a greedy self serving power monger – which is about as far from being a socialist as you can get.

Sorry – but as a leftist I take offense at having someone try to shove Hillary into my campsite – she should go hang out with her republican war mongering pals – I understand their camp is quite nice, lots of under paid illegal’s keeping the lawns trimmed and the food hot …. she wouldn’t be able to stand our camp – as we all lend a hand to keep things going on our own.

Peace

Steve

Electric Bill

October 9, 2007 at 10:17 am

I know CHB wants to present a balanced debate, but can’t they get a conservative writer who isn’t a raving lunatic. You really scrape the bottom of the barrel with Deroy Murdock. He must spend most of his day rearranging the tin-foil blinds on his windows to keep Democratic thought control from getting into his house. There are serious and intelligent conservative bloggers who can provide intelligent and thought provoking commentary, but Deroy Murdock isn’t among them.

billtc

October 9, 2007 at 11:28 am

I’m surprised that you posted a column by such a rabid ideologue. I think most readers appreciate a thoughtful discourse from someone with a different viewpoint, but Murdock’s piece is certainly not in that category. This guy has zero credibility – he lost me in the first paragraph, when he referred to Hillary’s “full-throated, left-wing radicalism”. Hillary is a darling of the DLC, and hardly a first choice among most progressives who are concerned generally with corporate control of our national agenda, and specifically the continued rise of the military industrial complex. Please! If Murdock considers Hillary a leftist I’d hate to experience his perspective on reality.
Bill C in SE Texas

Jeffers

October 9, 2007 at 11:42 am

It takes a village to run a democracy; or at least an impartial website.

Doug has fulfilled his personal mandate and challenged everyone today. While you might be annoyed that he would even provide Mr. Murdock a place to print, someone else must be ticked off that Hal Brown and Doug himself voice the opinions they’ve expressed here.

Another successful day at the CHB virtual headquarters.

Jeffers

Peace without freedom is still slavery.

lackawack

October 9, 2007 at 1:09 pm

Socialism vs.what? Fascism? Conservatism? What is conservatism, anyhow? Bush-style imperialism, spending us into generational debt while crashing and burning? Compassionate conservatism that failed to appear? This article is just another tired Hoovercide with no redeeming qualities. Hilary is totally duplicitous and doesn’t warrant such hot sturm and drang. Maybe the writer could give his ideal platform statement so we might receive at least a little guidance about what we should be looking after the Bush fiasco, rather than cheap hatchet job tirades.

dci

DejaVuAllOver

October 9, 2007 at 2:27 pm

Hillary’s not a Conservative, and she’s not a Liberal. She’s an ambitious, power-hungry, all-pandering, unprincipled (except for power) war-mongering hypocrite. She obviously won’t stand up to the Neocons or Israelis because she keeps handing them the remote; she obviously doesn’t mind the idea of war with Iran; she’ll screw the working-class for the privileged like her husband did and she’ll encourage the poor folks to breed for an extra $5k in their pockets. I’m as Democrat as they come, but this stupid, arrogant sl*t makes me ill. She represents the WORST of BOTH party ideologies.

lindaj

October 9, 2007 at 4:19 pm

I am curious to know what readers think could really be wrong with the idea in general of giving every child enough for an education or house downpayment. The writer nastily says it would cost $20 billion. And how many days of the Iraq war does that equal? I’d as soon spend it at home, health and education would be my first two choices.